


Keeping Secrets

by Mohini



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Past Rape/Non-con, Rape Recovery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-01
Updated: 2014-08-07
Packaged: 2018-02-11 08:43:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2061552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mohini/pseuds/Mohini
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It has been said that a drunk will never lie. Neither will the memories brought back by drunken mistakes, it would seem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This one was partially posted over at Hex Files under the screen name of Medireh. It was one of the first longer pieces I attempted and it shows, but I still think it has some things worth saying in it. I'm moving it over here and hope to get it finished up in the near future. Hope you enjoy!

“Harry? Get up, please! Parkinson is in the common room and she looks ready to kill!” Ron was calling through the curtains of the four poster bed. Harry sat up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Why would Pansy be in the Gryffindor common room? Then he remembered exactly what had happened the night before as the sharp clicking of high heeled boots rang across the floor and he muttered a string of expletives. 

“Harry James Potter, get your useless arse out of that bed right now and talk to me,” Pansy said, her voice like ice. He did as he was told, climbing out of the bed and pulling on the first pair of trousers he came to in his wardrobe, following them with a hastily grabbed button down. He turned to face Pansy and saw her wand drawn and trained on him. His roommates had all retreated to the safety of any room that didn’t contain Pansy.

“Stop flinching, you idiot. I don’t feel like waiting around for you to do whatever passes for grooming with you,” she hissed at him, muttering a couple of charms as he felt his hair arrange itself and his teeth become quite a bit cleaner before the tingle of a full body cleansing charm passed over him. “Now, you are going to tell me why in fuck Draco has barricaded himself in his dorm and is refusing to let anyone in to check on him. Theo says he heard him in the loo overnight, sick as a damn dog, and he kicked the lot of them out this morning. Since he was with you last night, or at least that’s the story I was given, I want answers. Now.”

Lying to Pansy wasn’t an option. She always knew. And she was more fiercely protective of Draco than Harry had ever imagined anyone could be. “Wehadafight,” he said, the words coming out in an incoherent rush. 

“I did not just hear you say you had a fight with Draco and left him alone afterwards. I know I didn’t, because you are not that stupid.”

Harry looked at the floor. This was going to hurt. A lot. “He told me to go away,” he mumbled. He was hoping to at least score some points for having been obedient to Draco’s request. 

“Idiot,” Pansy told him. “Go to the dungeons, now. The wards on the door are keyed to let you in; I checked after he did it. Please be prepared to grovel. Whatever you did, or whatever he thinks you did, just apologize like your life depends on it and hurry up about it, understood?”

Harry nodded, leaving the room a lot faster than dignity really allowed for. He was in the dungeons, embarrassingly out of breath from the speed of his trip down the stairs, and outside the dormitory door in very little time at all. He touched the handle of the door, feeling it warm at his touch, and slipped into the room. Draco was sitting on his bed, dressed in slim trouser pants and a black jumper. The tailored clothing was utterly incongruous with the rest of Draco’s appearance. His face was blotchy from tears; his eyes were red rimmed, and his hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail, a telltale sign that Draco had been ill quite a few times. He almost never pulled his hair back, saying it made him look too much like his father. Harry could smell the scent of far too much firewhisky as he got closer to him.

“Come to finish what you started, Potter?” Draco asked quietly. Harry pulled a chair from one of the study desks and sat down facing him, keeping a decent distance from the bed.

“No. Pansy came and got me this morning. She said you were sick last night and that you kicked everyone out today. She’s worried about you.”

“I’m fine,” the slight tremor in his voice gave away the lie in the words. Harry looked at him for a long while before replying.

“You are not. I’m sorry for what happened.”

“I don’t want to talk about it. I’d Obliviate you if I thought I could fucking get away with it. Why did you have to go and be so damn nice about it? You and your fucking Gryffindor honor.” Draco stopped speaking to take a long pull from the bottle clutched in his hand. 

Harry knew there wasn’t anything he could say that would help. Nothing was going to erase the things that Draco was trying to drown in the burning liquor. The previous night, drunk on Muggle vodka and feeling far too uninhibited, Harry had pinned Draco to a wall in an upstairs corridor before grabbing for the other boy’s pants and shoving them down as he spun him around to face the wall. He had already shoved two fingers up Draco’s arse when he realized the other boy had gone flaccid and was crying softly. They had had sex plenty of times before, but never once without Draco looking at Harry. In an instant of clarity that had sobered him immediately, Harry knew why. He had hastily pulled away from Draco, tugging his clothes back on and apologizing to the shaking boy. Draco had told him it was nothing and stalked off a few moments later, leaving him alone and very guilty.

Draco drank again from his bottle, swallowing hard and coughing a bit. Harry could see that his hands were shaking. He had never seen Draco look so vulnerable and he hated that he was the cause of his pain. He moved closer to him and sat on the edge of the bed.

“I think you’ve had enough,” he said, his voice quiet but firm. Draco didn’t argue when he pulled the bottle from his grasp and sat it on the floor out of reach. He let Harry tug him into his arms, curling up in a ball against Harry’s chest. He managed not to cry aloud, but tears flowed freely as Harry held him. When he was calm again quite some time later Harry kissed his forehead, soft lips against the overwarm skin. Exhaustion was tugging at him and as if sensing the weight of it Harry supported him more fully.

“Tell me what you need, Draco,” he said softly. Draco was still for a while, considering. No profound answer came to him, though, as he realized that his alcohol filled stomach was preparing for mutiny. 

“A bucket,” he said flatly. Harry fought the urge to laugh as he picked the skinny boy up and carried him into the bathroom; planting him in front of a toilet and sitting behind him to provide support. In a motion that would have been shameful had Harry not seen him do it a thousand times before, Draco leaned over the bowl and shoved his fingers down his throat, bringing up the contents of his stomach within a few moments. When he was finished, Harry helped him back to bed.

“I would tell you we need to talk about this, but you’re in no state,” Harry told him. “So I’m going to sit right here beside you and wait for you to sober up enough for us to talk. Close your eyes and rest, okay?”

All pretense of control lost, Draco looked at Harry rather pitifully. “Hold me?” he asked. Harry nodded, stretching out beside him and staying very still as Draco crawled onto him, laying his head on his shoulder and pressing the rest of him along Harry’s side. He was asleep in moments, the effects of the alcohol providing enough sedation to put him to sleep easily in the safety of Harry’s arms. Harry lay still, breathing slowly as Draco slept against him. He wondered how many times Draco had flinched during sex and he had taken it for a normal reaction to the inevitable discomfort of being filled. He wanted to kick himself for all the times he had shushed the other boy, petting and calming him and continuing on the moment Draco relaxed. He knew that Draco had been abused. The scars on his back were impossible to miss. He had spent the better part of a year watching the abuse Draco put himself through; he had watched him starving himself for less than perfect marks, vomiting up meals that he deemed too heavy. He had witnessed the bottles of firewhisky he consumed to quiet his demons. He had watched Draco fight sleep for days on end to keep nightmares at bay. He had no idea how he had never realized that Draco’s tentative nature when it came to sex was born in abuse.

Draco slept much of the day. Harry wondered idly just how much alcohol he had consumed. He knew that both of them were pretty hammered the night before, and if Draco had been sick overnight he had continued on drinking when he got back to his dorm. The bottle he had been working on when Harry arrived was better than two thirds empty. In his alcohol induced slumber, Draco whined and squirmed, mumbling incoherently at times. Harry soothed him with soft touches and quiet words of reassurance, telling him that everything was okay and that he was safe. Several times, Draco opened his eyes enough to stare at Harry before pressing himself tightly against him and dozing back off. It was well into the evening when he woke fully.

He rubbed his eyes and found Harry still beside him, an arm draped across Draco’s body. “Hey there,” Harry told him quietly. “How are you feeling?”

“Like shit,” Draco admitted, his head pounding from the aftereffects of his marathon drinking session. Harry summoned a hangover potion and popped the wax seal for him, handing it over for Draco to down. Then, knowing that the nausea would be the worst part for Draco to manage, he summoned an additional stomach settling potion, tipping it into the other boy’s mouth and holding him while the potions burned their way into his bloodstream.

“Someone has to be able to make a fucking hangover cure that doesn’t hurt so damn much,” Draco whined afterwards. Harry smiled at him, although the expression didn’t reach his eyes.

“Maybe if you didn’t drink enough to create quite such spectacular hangovers, the cure wouldn’t be so bad,” he countered. Draco considered taking offense at the comment, but knew it was true. He nodded in agreement.

“Is there any chance I can convince you to pretend the last day or so never happened?” Draco asked him. He knew Harry was going to want to talk and he did not want to have to discuss anything. A lifetime of keeping emotions under wraps and doing what was expected of him had left him with little ability to deal with them.

“I’ll make it short and to the point,” Harry told him. “Why didn’t you tell me you were raped?” The words crashed into Draco with almost physical force. Some part of him had hoped Harry wouldn’t manage to connect those dots. He closed his eyes, breathing deeply and trying to get himself under control before he replied. It was a losing battle.

“Some things aren’t meant to be discussed,” he said, his voice shaky at best. 

“Draco, I hurt you. I imagine last night wasn’t the first time, either. We don’t have to talk about it. I don’t expect a big drawn out emotional discussion. Just know I’ll do everything I can to not hurt you again, okay?”

Draco had never been quite so grateful that he was in love with a boy. He knew Harry was telling the truth. He wouldn’t try to drag out a big emotional confession. He would simply accept the new knowledge, and care for Draco accordingly. Some part of him felt incredibly guilty for not telling Harry the truth months ago. But what was done was done. He couldn’t stop the tears that were now leaking from his eyes, despite his efforts at holding them back. Harry held him, wiping gently at his damp cheeks. Even though he knew that Harry would not require it, he felt that he should tell him at least a little bit of the truth behind what the other boy had guessed from his reactions.

“I was 10, the first time it happened,” he whispered, his face pressed into Harry’s chest as he spoke. “Father was having a meeting. Mr. Rowle came into my rooms while the others were busy. He touched me; made me suck him. He told me he would kill me if I said a word. I didn’t tell anyone. A few months later, Dolohov came to me in the same way. I got very good at sucking cock that year. Toward the end of the summer, just before I came to school, Father came in while one of them was with me. I thought he would stop them, and he did. He cursed the hell out of the man. But he came back that night, and he told me if I was old enough to be doing that, he should be benefiting from it, since I was his. He made me suck him then and every night I was home until the beginning of school. It was just sucking cock until fourth year, when the Dark Lord returned. Father came to my rooms the first night back and told me I was old enough to learn to be more useful. Then he held me down and fucked me. I thought I was dying, it hurt so much. When the Dark Lord moved into the manor, he told Father I could be useful for his own entertainment. He wasn’t human enough for sex, but he wanted to watch and I was brought to him most nights. He would pick one of his Death Eaters to fuck me. They usually tied me down or pinned me to a wall so I couldn’t fight back. I stopped trying after a while.”

When Draco was silent, Harry didn’t know what to say. He had guessed that Draco had been raped, but would never have expected the extent of the abuse. Seven years of being used for his Father’s pleasure. Seven years of being a plaything for the Death Eaters who were always in and out of his home. No wonder the boy fought sleep so hard. How many nights had he been woken up to provide pleasure to a man who should have been protecting him?

“I love you,” Harry said softly. “Just tell me what you need me to do and I’ll do it.” He didn’t know what else to say, but hoped that Draco understood that he would be following his lead from here out. He knew Draco well enough to know that coddling him would only offend, but he also knew that Draco needed the opportunity to be the one in control if he was ever going to feel safe. 

Draco was still and quiet for a very long time. He didn’t know what to say, what to do. He had never planned to tell a soul what had happened to him. “I don’t know what I want,” Draco said quietly. “I don’t want to stop, but I don’t want to feel like I’m going to lose it if you’re a little bit rough, either. 

Harry didn’t know what to tell him, so he just held him close. Draco gradually relaxed in his arms, and the slight trembling that had started when he described his experiences eventually faded away. “Look, can we just, I don’t want you looking at me like I’m going to fall to pieces at any moment, you know? You needed to know, so shit like last night doesn’t happen, but I’m not a girl. I don’t want or need to be treated like I’m going to break. I like sex, I like fucking you, and I am really not interested in giving that up. Just don’t hold me down and we’ll be fine. Can we just try not to focus on my shitty childhood? I’ve got issues. I know that, you obviously know that, so there’s not much point in rehashing it, right?”

Harry nodded. He half considered pointing out that said issues meant that Draco was a fucking mess, but some small rational part of him knew that was a discussion neither of them wanted. They sat in silence for a long while. When Draco pulled away his eyes were finally calm and clear. “We should probably go let Pansy know we haven’t killed one another,” he told Harry.


	2. Chapter 2

Draco stared at the curtains surrounding his bed, trying to will himself to sleep. He was exhausted. Two weeks had passed since that night in the corridor, and Harry had barely touched him with anything but the most hesitant of touches. Every time Draco flinched, or Harry thought he had flinched, he backed away immediately. Draco was ready to scream at him to get over it, to ignore it like he used to and to just get on with things. It wasn’t that he wanted Harry to hold him down and bring on a flashback. He would, however, really appreciate it if he stopped treating him with quite such kid gloves. He tried to appreciate that Harry was looking out for him, but it wasn’t really working. He had been so certain that nothing would change, but everything had.

Tonight had been quite possibly the worst. Draco had convinced Harry to share a couple of bottles of firewhisky with him, in hopes that a drunk Harry would be a bit less observant. If anything, it had made matters far worse. Harry apologized for every touch, asked repeatedly if Draco was alright, and had even pulled away in the middle of a blowjob to ask if he could touch him. When Draco’s erection had wilted out of pure annoyance, Harry had proceeded to hold and cuddle him and apologize for being too rough! Draco had ended up screaming at him that what he needed was a good, sound fucking and that he regretted having told Harry anything about what had happened to him.

Harry had stared at him as though he had been slapped. Draco tried to apologize for his outburst, but Harry pushed him away and in so doing had knocked him to the floor. Draco reacted without thinking, launching himself at Harry with fists flailing. Harry had refused to fight back. He just lay there, letting Draco hit him without the slightest reaction at all. When Draco pulled back and saw the bruises blossoming on Harry’s skin, he had stood up and run from the room.

Drunk and frightened by what he had done, and most of all by how very like his father he clearly was, Draco had hunted down Blaise Zabini for a sobering potion and then taken off for a very long run. Harry had introduced him to the concept of Muggle exercise as a way to calm himself down early in the year. He made several laps around the grounds, ignoring the cold and the damp of a late April night in Scotland. His legs ached and his lungs burned, but he still felt like a monster. When he couldn’t go any further, he had made his way into the dorms, showered, and retreated to the sanctuary of his bed. 

He desperately wanted something, anything, to make him feel better. He half considered Summoning another bottle of whisky, but getting drunk had gotten him into this mess in the first place and he doubted it would get him out of it. In the end, he wound up spending the rest of the night staring blankly at the curtains and listening for the sounds of his dorm-mates getting up for the day. He knew that if he was up before everyone else, Blaise would go running to Pansy and that would probably end in Miss Overprotective telling Harry off for upsetting him. The last thing Draco wanted was another round of penitent Potter. 

The moment he heard some of the other boys moving about the room he cast a quick Glamour to hide the darkening circles beneath his eyes and headed for the showers. The water was nearly scalding hot, and he refused to turn it down, allowing the sharp sting to beat against his back. He knew that the scars there stood out vividly when the skin was reddened by the heat, but he didn’t really care. He needed to feel something, and this was apparently as good as it was going to get until Harry stopped thinking of him as something breakable. 

He dressed quickly in his uniform, thankful as he often was that he didn’t have to put any effort into deciding what to wear in the mornings. Checking quickly around him to make sure no one else was in a position to see, he pulled two phials from the depths of his wardrobe. Two invigoration draughts later, he closed the wardrobe and headed up to the Great Hall for a breakfast of strong black coffee. He caught Harry watching him from across the room and found himself examining him for any evidence of their fight. The bruises were gone, and Harry was watching him with a look that was somehow both calm and sad. He pulled a slip of parchment from his bag, scrawling a quick note on it with a time and place for meeting up that evening. He quickly cast a charm on it have the message show up on an identical slip of charmed parchment in Harry’s bag. It was a spell Harry had discovered in a book belonging to his godfather, Sirius Black. Apparently, Black and his friends had used it to coordinate pranks and such while in school. 

Classes seemed to drag on forever, and by the time supper was over, Draco was barely able to stay on his feet. The previous night had been the third one in a row that he had not slept, and it was taking a serious toll. It didn’t help much that the invigoration draughts he favored had a strong appetite suppressant effect. He could scarcely manage half a portion before his stomach felt painfully full. Ordinarily, he would have hidden himself away in one of the lesser used lavatories and gotten rid of it, but Harry always seemed to know when he had. The last thing he needed was to give the boy yet another thing to worry over him. As he left the Great Hall, Draco separated from the crowd heading toward the dungeons and climbed the long staircases toward the upper floors of the school. There was an abandoned classroom on the 6th floor that he and Harry had been using to meet up for most of the year. 

Once there, Draco Transfigured a few desks into comfy oversized armchairs and settled in to wait. He didn’t want to presume anything. He’d never hit Harry before and was fairly certain that this was going to be ugly. He knew full well that Harry had been badly neglected by his Muggle relatives. They didn’t discuss childhood experiences, and with good reason, so he had no idea if Harry had been knocked around as well. His reaction the previous night though, of simply lying there and taking it, was evidence enough to suspect he had. Draco knew a thing or two about learning not to fight back. Any resistance at all toward his father usually resulted in a thrashing twice as long, usually with a few hexes thrown in for good measure. 

By the time Harry arrived, Draco had rather nearly worked himself into a panic. He had convinced himself Harry would want nothing more to do with him and despite his frustrations with the last few weeks he truly didn’t know what to do without him. When he heard the doorknob turn, he struggled to school his features into a calm mask. Harry took one look at him and reached out to hold him. Draco stepped back quickly, avoiding the touch. He needed to be able to talk, and he knew that once he had Harry’s arms around him, he was going to forget everything he wanted to say. He had meant to talk to him from the moment he realized how overly cautious Harry intended to be with him. Somehow it just hadn’t happened.

Draco took a deep breath and forced himself to look Harry in the eye. “We need to talk. I’m sorry for last night. I know that doesn’t fix it, but there it is. I’m just so fucking frustrated. I told you I didn’t want to be treated like I’m made of porcelain, but that’s exactly what you’re doing. I don’t want you to ask every time you touch me. I don’t want to be perpetually reminded that I’m damaged goods. I know trying to knock the shit out of you isn’t going to help anything. I don’t have any excuse for that. I fucked up royally and I know I don’t deserve another chance. I’m hoping you’ll give me one, but I know what I did. I never meant for you to know anything about what happened with Father, or anyone else for that matter. It’s over. I don’t want to think about it ever again. Every time you stop and coddle me and try to make sure everything is alright throws it in my face that there is something wrong with me, that you have to worry about me freaking out from something that should be completely spontaneous. I need you to stop. Please.”

Harry stared at him for a while, and Draco worried that he had well and truly ruined everything. He could feel himself starting to tremble and struggled to keep himself under control. Breaking down like a giant baby was not going to help convince Harry to stop worrying about his every move. After a few minutes, Harry stepped closer and reached out hesitantly for Draco’s hand. Holding it, he rubbed small circles against Draco’s wrist.

That one small touch was all it took to send Draco into a near meltdown. He leaned forward, dropping his head against Harry’s shoulder and letting himself be held close. “You’re not damaged goods,” Harry told him. Draco couldn’t find the words he had intended to say. He had wanted to explain, to tell Harry why he needed to be treated as though nothing had happened. Instead, all he could do was clutch at Harry and struggle to control his breathing. He was not going to break down again. He needed to stay in control. Harry didn’t say anything, just held him and when Draco finally felt like he could trust his voice again he pulled away, dropping into one of the chairs. “I had no right to hit you like that.”

“I’ve had plenty worse than that, Draco. You hit like a girl,” Harry told him as he sat down in the other chair, and Draco tried not to scowl. He knew perfectly well that Muggle dueling was definitely not his strong point. He wasn’t quite sure how to address Harry’s answer, though. It was clearly an admission that he’d been hit before, and with far worse effect, but Draco didn’t want to be guilty of the very thing he was so unhappy with Harry for. Harry ended up solving the dilemma for him. “My uncle wasn’t exactly a gentle fellow. He didn’t knock me around often, but when he did, he meant it. Dudley, though, he thought it was his life mission to knock the shit out of me at every opportunity. He and his cronies called it Harry Hunting and I’m fairly certain it was his favorite game. I don’t tend to think about it much. It’s in the past and all that. Suppose I should have thought of that with you.”

Draco took a deep breath, trying to stay calm. He failed. Three nights without sleep, two weeks of perpetual reminding of too many years of hell, and his still quite upset stomach combined into far more than he could cope with any longer. He didn’t even know why a simple acknowledgement of his words was sending him into a breakdown. “Draco?” Harry asked. His tone was quiet, obviously meant to be nonthreatening and gentle. If anything, that made matters worse. Draco clenched both hands into tight fists, digging the nails into the palms. He had hoped it would distract him, give him something physical to focus on. No such luck. He took several deep breaths, struggling against a rising tide of panic that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once. When that didn’t help, he drew his knees up to his chest, clasping his arms around them and dropping his head to his knees. He began silently reciting various magical theorems, Arithmancy formulas, anything at all to distract himself. He barely registered a light touch against his shoulder. Harry didn’t try to hold him, just stood there with one hand against him. Draco knew he was shaking, and every bit of will he could summon up went to forcing his body to settle down. 

It took far too long, but in the end he was able to lift his head and look Harry in the eye. He muttered an apology for losing it. Harry shrugged. He clearly didn’t know what the right reaction was, since Draco had been so adamant that coddling was definitely not it. Draco found himself torn between wanting comfort and wanting independence. They sat together for a while in silence, and the awkward evening came to a close when Harry pointed out that curfew was fast approaching and they needed to get back to the dorms. Draco trudged back to the dungeons, so worn out that his vision kept blurring. He made it into his room and fell into bed fully clothed. He barely noticed when Blaise slipped his shoes off of him and closed the curtains. 

Sleep held him until near dawn, when he woke gasping for breath and filled with a sense of utter terror. There was no memory of the dream, but he stumbled into the bathroom and into a cold shower to settle the roiling of his stomach. He leant against the wall of the shower, shivering uncontrollably and struggling to calm his breathing. This was not supposed to be happening. He had finally started putting his experiences behind him. The nightmares had begun to ease, and the perpetual anxiety had been gradually receding. Then that awful night with Harry had come along and reopened wounds that should have been long since forgotten. The more Harry tried to be understanding, the more Draco seemed to suffer. He had been able to cope before by denying what had happened, even in his own mind. Now nothing seemed to stop the onslaught of memories. As he stood under the freezing water, lips blue and every inch of him shaking with cold, he could still practically feel his father’s hands on him, holding him down in the dining room of their home and telling him to be quiet or he would regret it. By the time Draco had managed to calm down, he was crouched on the floor of the shower, the water still pouring over him. He had finally turned it to warm, and was struggling to chase the chill from his body. When the shaking had eased, he turned off the taps and wrapped a towel around his waist. Stepping out of the shower, he nearly walked into Blaise Zabini. 

“Are you trying to drown yourself in there or something?” Blaise asked. Draco shook his head, hoping Blaise wouldn’t ask prying questions.

“Something happen with Potter, then?” 

Another curt shake of the head and Draco tried to push past him to go get dressed. The others were awake as well and the dorm was full of activity. Draco managed not to scream or lash out when Blaise grabbed his shoulders and spun him around to face him. “Draco. I haven’t seen you look this awful in years. What is going on?”

“Nothing, Zabini,” Draco growled. 

“I’ve known you since we were in nappies. You can’t lie to me worth a damn.”

“Leave it, Zabini. Just fucking leave it,” Draco snapped, shaking Blaise’s grip and shoving his way past him. He pulled his clothes on with shaking hands, and downed one of the potent invigoration draughts in his wardrobe. They weren’t lasting nearly as long as they should these days and he was starting to worry just a little bit about how many he needed. He cast his grooming charms, checked himself over in the mirror, and stormed out of the dormitory and through the common room, hoping to escape before Blaise went running off to tell Pansy that something was wrong with him. 

He sat down at the table in the Great Hall and drank a mug of coffee, ignoring the food on the table altogether. He knew he wouldn’t be able to keep it down long enough to be worth eating. The more of the invigoration draughts he took, the less his stomach seemed to tolerate food. He glanced across the room to see Harry watching him, his expression full of concern. Draco forced a smile, hoping it would serve as adequate reassurance. 

When he left the Great Hall, Harry followed him, and the two stepped into one of the many alcoves near the entrance to the school. “Why aren’t you eating?” Harry asked without preamble.

Draco tried to think of a decent excuse, but decided not to bother. “Nightmare last night woke me up with a seriously upset stomach. I don’t much feel like spending my morning bent over a toilet so I’m just not going to bother trying. I expect it should settle down by tonight, if you’re that worried.”

“You’re getting too thin again. You’re barely eating, and you know the damn Glamours don’t work well enough to hide the circles under your eyes for very long. I know you said you don’t want to be treated like glass, but you really do look like you’re breaking.” Draco wasn’t sure what to say to that. Harry was utterly right, on so many levels. The problem was that Draco didn’t really want to have to deal with the fallout from admitting that it was what Harry had done that had restarted the spiral. He stared at the floor, unwilling to meet Harry’s eyes and give too much away. Harry reached out and took one of his hands in his own. “What can I do, Draco? Please just tell me.”

“I don’t know,” Draco answered honestly, deeply shamed when his voice shook as he spoke. Tears prickled behind his eyelids, and he screwed his eyes tightly shut to stop them. Crying aloud was a weakness he did not intend to permit himself. Not now. Harry tugged him forward and hugged him tightly. 

“You’re taking Vitalis again, aren’t you?” Harry asked him. There was no point in denying something that was clearly becoming obvious. Draco nodded.

“Are you sleeping at all? Or just crashing every couple of days again?”

“Crashing out,” he replied. “Can’t sleep. Hurts too much. Keep waking up in the middle of a fucking panic attack and I can’t even remember what scared me in the dream.”

“Promise not to go ballistic on me?” Harry asked. Draco nodded in reply.

“Do you want me to stay with you tonight?” 

Draco wanted to tell him that he did not need that. The idea of sleeping cocooned against Harry, though, and being held and soothed when the nightmares came was so tempting. This was not supposed to be happening. He was supposed to be in control of his emotions; the stupid nightmares had nearly gone away before, well, just before. He didn’t want to think about what had brought them back. He had told Harry, just last night, that he didn’t want to be coddled, didn’t want to be treated as though he was broken. The realization hit like a Bludger. He was broken. Completely, utterly broken, and nothing was going to make it better. Damaged goods, ruined beyond repair, and never going to be able to live without the specter of his childhood waiting to rear its head again. He began to shake again. Harry rubbed his back, and Draco tried not to cringe at the touch.

“Christ, Draco,” he whispered, in that odd Muggle way of cursing he had. “Breathe for me, I’ve got you. Nice deep breaths,” he coached. Draco could hear him, but only just barely above the roar of his own pulse in his ears. Harry had done this for him in the past, soothed and calmed him though a panic attack. Which, he supposed he was indeed having, as he struggled to even out his ragged breathing. When he was finally able to think, the only thing he wanted was for Harry to take him somewhere, anywhere, and help him sleep. The invigoration draughts, which always came with a bit of a risk for extra paranoia, were clearly making him completely irrational. With his face buried against Harry’s chest, he whispered that he needed to crash.

“I’ll take you to Pomfrey,” Harry told him. Draco couldn’t summon the will to argue. He was exhausted. At least in the hospital wing maybe he could convince the matron to sedate him so he could sleep without the dreams, if only for a little while. He let Harry tug him out of the alcove, an arm around his waist. To anyone watching, they just looked a bit close. Draco could feel the tingle of magic from the lightening charm Harry was using to support most of his weight. He wondered exactly how bad he must look, but couldn’t really be bothered to care. 

The walk to the hospital wing seemed to take forever. By the time they got there, Draco collapsed into a chair by the entrance while Harry went to find Madam Pomfrey. When the matron came bustling out of her office, she took one look at him and hurried him onto a cot. Draco lay quietly as she performed a switching spell, exchanging his clothing for hospital pajamas. She waved her wand at him in a series of complicated looking incantations and he closed his eyes, suddenly so exhausted that he really didn’t care what she found. He could hear Harry talking to her, explaining that Draco was having trouble with nightmares and wasn’t sleeping well. It had been Madam Pomfrey who had prescribed the invigoration draughts in the first place, so at least he knew he wouldn’t have to explain their use. He heard her muttering about stubborn children after Harry answered the question of how long it had been going on with the answer of two weeks. 

“Mr. Malfoy, drink this now. It’s Dreamless Sleep. We will finish your examination after you have gotten some rest,” the matron told him, and he felt her cool hands against his neck as she lifted him up to drink it. Darkness closed in almost immediately, and he welcomed it like an old friend. He was so very, very tired.


	3. Chapter 3

Harry had hoped that taking Draco to the matron would have ended in some actual help for his boyfriend. It had turned out to be a complete and utter waste. Madam Pomfrey had run through a battery of tests, prescribed some nutrient draughts for mealtimes, lectured Draco about excessive use of invigoration draughts, and handed over a supply of anxiety potions to help him sleep. There had been no mention of a referral to a Mind Healer, even though Harry knew St. Mungo’s had been sending one to the school weekly for the entirety of the school year. He knew because Hermione had spent a fair lot of the beginning of the year lecturing him about his own alleged need to see one.

A month later, and they seemed to be back where they had begun. Harry was making a concerted effort not to remind Draco of anything that would send him reeling into a panic attack. Sex was bland and if he was honest about it, boring. Harry was afraid to speak, fearing he would somehow manage to say something to offend Draco. For his part, Draco seemed afraid to make a sound in the worry that Harry would stop what he was doing. Any mention of perhaps not having sex for a while was met with protests from Draco that everything was perfectly fine. There were nights that Harry suspected it would be better with one of the charmed inflatable dolls from the adult section of Wheezes. 

Tonight was no exception. Draco was on his back, hands behind his knees and eyes locked onto Harry’s. Despite the fact that they had both just come, Harry was feeling considerably less than satisfied and it was clear to him that Draco was as well. Bracing himself on one elbow, he reached out and ran a hand over Draco’s jaw, drawing a shudder from the other boy and a half frightened grimace. “It’s alright,” Harry whispered, rolling to the side as he pulled out. 

“Tell me where you are,” he asked softly, still stroking Draco’s face. There was no answer, only those big eyes staring at him. “Draco, this isn’t working. You’ve got to talk to me.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Draco replied, and his voice was anything but steady.

“Then don’t worry about getting it right for once. Just tell me what you’re thinking. I feel like I’m losing you and the harder I try to hold on the further away you seem to go.”

“M’already lost,” Draco whispered, and Harry felt the shaking beginning in his frail shoulders. He hadn’t seen Draco cry since the afternoon he had hauled him to the hospital wing. Within moments, it seemed as though a floodgate had opened. Draco positively bawled against him, and Harry held him as tightly as he dared as tears fell rapidly against his chest. Draco spoke though the sobs, telling Harry he felt worthless, that he wanted to go to sleep and just not wake up, that he couldn’t get anything right. He told him that the anxiety potions made him feel numb, and that he felt as though he was living in a fog that wouldn’t go away. He admitted that he was terrified to stop taking them, afraid that the flashbacks and crushing anxiety would return. 

Harry tried to comfort him, telling him how much he loved him. Assuring him that no matter what he wasn’t going anywhere. He ran one hand gently over Draco’s ribs, not for the first time worrying about how prominent they had become. When Draco was quiet and still against him, he kissed the tears from his face. Half afraid of what the response would be but not willing to let the chance go by yet again, he pushed Draco’s hair out of his face and looked into his eyes before speaking. “Have you thought about seeing the Mind Healer? I’ll go with you. There have to be better potions or something out there. I hate seeing you like this.”

“I can’t,” Draco whispered.

“Tell me why.”

“I can’t. Please, Harry. I don’t even want you to know what you do. I can’t tell some stranger about my shitty childhood. Alright? I just can’t.”

“Then talk to me. If you think it’s the potions, we’ll go the Pomfrey and ask for something different. I can’t keep watching you fade away like this. I know you don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to talk about it. But I think we have to before we lose ourselves entirely.”

Draco was silent for a long while before he pulled away to look at Harry. “Can you just hold me for now? I swear we’ll talk, I just, can you just hold me a little while longer?”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Harry said quietly, kissing Draco’s lips and pulling him close once more. Draco pressed against him, and Harry rubbed his bony back before Summoning the blanket at the foot of the bed to cover them both. They lay there, clinging to one another in a room that had once been a fiery hell. The room had provided the bed, the blankets, and even lube. Every other time they had used the room, there had been alcohol, but it had been nowhere to be found tonight. As Harry held Draco close, he wondered if somehow it had sensed that what they really needed was silence and the clarity of being completely, utterly sober. 

Eventually, Draco pulled himself up until he was facing Harry, both of their heads resting on a single pillow. “I love you,” he whispered. 

“I love you, too,” Harry told him, reaching out and taking Draco’s hand beneath the blanket, twining their fingers together and squeezing gently.

“I don’t want to feel like this anymore. I’m tired of being numb. I don’t want to be a walking panic attack, though, either. I don’t know what to do. It’s better when you’re with me. I don’t feel so fucking scared. But then I’m scared of being too reliant on you, and it just keeps circling.”

“Why does relying on me scare you?” Harry asked, hoping he wasn’t treading too far. 

“What happens if I lose you? Or you get tired of dealing with a pathetic excuse for a boyfriend who needs constant reassurance? I’m completely fucked up, Harry. You shouldn’t be stuck with me.”

“I want to be with you. No one has made that decision for me. I want to be here. I’m not going anywhere, and if you need me to tell you that ten thousand times a day, I will. Besides, I can give you a run for your money in the fucked up department. Muggles and a cupboard, remember?” Harry said, trying to make light of his own not so stellar upbringing. Thankfully it worked, and Draco gave him a sad smile.

“Fucking made for each other, weren’t we? We’d make some biographer’s day, all the tragedy and shining hope in adversity crap. In all honesty, I’d just like to get through a day without half thinking of ways to not wake up again in the morning.”

“Would it help if I find a way to stay with you at night?”

“You can’t. I wish you could, but you can’t,” Draco replied quietly. “Maybe we could get away with it a few nights a week, but someone would eventually catch on if you’re never in your bed.”

“Then I will stay when we can manage it,” Harry told him. He knew from the times they had fallen asleep here in the Room of Requirement that Draco slept almost peacefully if he held him close through the night. “We’ve only got a few more months and we’ll be out of here.”

“Grand. I’ll be trapped in the fucking Manor with my mother,” Draco said, and the way he stiffened told Harry everything he needed to know. 

“No. You won’t. Come home with me. We’ll stay at Grimmauld until we find a place of our own. You’re not going back there.”

Draco didn’t answer. He just stared back at Harry as the tears came again. Harry pulled him close, shushing him and reminding him that he was loved, that he was safe, that Harry was not going anywhere and that he didn’t have to go back to a home that held nothing but terrifying memories. When he was settled down once more, Draco reached up to put one spindly hand against Harry’s face. “I’m not so good at this talking thing. It seems I’m mostly blubbering.”

“If that’s what you need, then that’s what you need,” Harry told him. 

“I don’t want to need it,” Draco whispered. 

“You don’t appear to be getting a choice,” Harry told him. Draco nodded and Harry held him tightly, rubbing his bony back and occasionally whispering reassurances. When Draco’s breathing slowed and deepened, he realized that the other boy had fallen asleep against him. It was getting late and curfew would be approaching soon. Harry set a charm to wake them with time to return to the dorms and settled in to hold Draco as he slept. 

When he woke Draco an hour later, he walked him down to the Slytherin dorm, worried that the clearly exhausted boy would manage to pass out on his way otherwise. He handed him off to Blaise, who assured Harry he would keep an eye on him overnight. Harry gave him a flimsy excuse about Draco having a migraine. Blaise nodded and wrapped a protective arm around Draco’s shoulders to escort him through the common room and off to bed. 

When Draco woke up the following morning, it was to Harry sitting on the edge of his bed. “Thought it might help if I’m here when you wake up, at the least,” Harry told him. Draco smiled at him and sheepishly wrapped his arms around him in a hug.

“Thanks. I’m sorry. I still don’t know why I’m falling apart like this. It’s been almost a year since everything ended, you know?”

“It’s only been a few months since I sent you into a massive fucking flashback. I’m not so sure you even really remembered half of what was done to you before that, Draco. You’re too damn good an Occlumens for your own safety sometimes.”

Draco nodded at that and Harry brushed a hand through his tangled hair. “I’ll stay here while you go get yourself ready. We’ve time enough before classes to get some breakfast. You need to eat something. You’re practically a walking skeleton.”

Draco rolled his eyes at him but nodded. He knew he was too thin, had seen the way his ribs protruded in the mirror. He was just having trouble convincing himself that there was any real reason to fix it. He stepped into the shower, willing himself to relax as the warm water hit him. He washed quickly. Long showers seemed to have a way of reminding him of hours spent in the shower at the Manor, trying and failing to feel clean again. The more he thought about it, the more upset he felt. He had lived through his father’s abuse for seven years. It had never affected him like this. He had always been able to seal it away, to avoid thinking of it at all outside of the moments when he was actually being held down and used. Now it seemed that everything reminded him of what had happened. It was stuck at the front of his consciousness and he couldn’t seem to make it retreat back again.

The anxiety draught did a good job of keeping the panic at bay, but it wasn’t doing anything to stop the invasion of memories that would have otherwise sent him reeling into a flashback. He didn’t know how to explain it to Harry, much less to the matron who had seemed less than interested in doing much for him besides throwing more potions at him. He knew Harry wanted him to speak to a Mind Healer, but the thought was horrifying. It was bad enough that Harry knew what had happened. He couldn’t talk to a stranger about letting his own father rape him. Besides, he mused ruefully, he wasn’t really sure it was rape if he had given up objecting. 

He must have been standing in the water a lot longer than he had thought, because the next thing he was aware of was Harry’s voice just outside the partition door. “Draco? You alright?”

“Sorry! I’ll be out in a moment, Harry, I’m fine,” Draco replied, turning off the taps and shaking his head in an attempt to clear his thoughts. He had no idea how long he had been standing there but the water had long since gone cool. 

He toweled off quickly and pulled on the clothes he had brought in with him. When he walked out of the bathroom, Harry was sitting on his bed. He stood up as Draco got closer. “Fine my arse,” Harry said softly, and reached out to run his hand through Draco’s hair. “An hour you were in there,” he told him softly. Draco stared back at him with wide eyes. Harry pulled out his wand and quickly dried Draco’s hair. How had he forgotten to do that? 

“You let the water run cold, didn’t you? Your lips are blue,” Harry told him, and Draco felt the tingle of a warming charm as Harry cast it over him. “What am I going to do with you?”

Draco just shrugged. He felt like he could sleep for weeks and still be tired. Not caring about how pathetic he probably looked, he wrapped his arms around Harry and leaned against him. Harry stepped backwards until they were sitting on the bed, with Draco practically in Harry’s lap. “Tell me what you’re thinking about,” Harry said quietly.

“I can’t seem to stop thinking,” Draco replied. “It’s not like I haven’t had plenty of time to deal with this, you know? I would understand if it was a one-time thing or if I’d had a memory charm or something locking it down and suddenly remembered. I’ve always known, and I don’t see why it matters so much now. I’ve never had panic attacks before, and now I feel like I’m just biding my time before the next meltdown.”

“The Muggles have a term for it. They call it post-traumatic stress. Apparently you can shut down the part of your awareness that deals with things like that, in effect your brain functions as though you’ve had a memory charm performed. The flashbacks come from a trigger, and I don’t think we need to think very hard about what that would have been for you. And really, Draco, I’m not so certain you were all that together before. I’ve never seen anyone drink the way you do. You have to admit you’re a little odd with the food thing. I don’t know too many people who voluntarily throw up after half the meals they eat. I think you’d just found ways to cope and now they aren’t quite working anymore.”

“I know you mean well but pointing out that I was probably already insane and am now just a little more so isn’t all that comforting,” Draco told him. 

“That’s what you get when you try to substitute an 18-year-old nutter for a Mind Healer,” Harry told him, hoping it would help take the sting out of what he had said earlier. 

“I doubt a Mind Healer would keep me from losing my mind half so well as you do,” Draco whispered, and Harry moved back a bit on the bed so that he could pull Draco closer to him without risking either of them falling. He knew that tone of voice far too well. Draco clung to him, shaking but not crying again. Most of the time, this was as close to tears as he came and Harry had learned in the last few months to hold him tight and wait for it to pass.

They both jumped when Draco’s warning alarm went off, notifying them that they had only a few minutes before classes would begin. Harry stood up, pulling Draco to his feet and silently casting a few simple grooming charms to straighten their clothes and tidy their hair. They were both quiet as they walked out of the dorm and into the main part of the school. Their first class was a shared one, Charms, and they slipped into seats at the back of the room a moment before Professor Flitwick began speaking.


End file.
